Thursday, November 30, 2006

OK, so when I was a wee lad, a couple of upper classmen (Pete Cenedella was one of them, although we met up again in 2000/2001 and he didn't remember me) took me into their room in order to teach me about The Residents, another new band nobody had ever heard of called Talking Heads, and the Dead Kennedys. And while I couldn't really get into the Residents, wearing an eyeball with a tophat was, well, aesthetically informative to my youth.

What this means, of course, is that guys with boxes on their heads really appeals to me.

Here's a movie I recorded sound on. About the time I started this blog. Now they have a trailer. (Obviously mixed on the video editing system 'cause they are using my split tracks as though they're stereo -- the voices jump back and forth. Apparently I'm the only one who notices this but it happens all the time in trailers.)

Remember when Laura met with the SciFi Channel? Our goal ultimately was to become producers of SciFi Channel Original Movies. That's really not so much our goal now. And this is why:

Up 'till now SciFi Channel's acquisitions has been trying to fill 24 slots/year. 80% of those movies are independents. But things aren't working. First off, they have trouble with movies like Bloodmask as it is an "Off-World Film" -- the wisdom is that "we know those don't work." But secondly, they thought they had the formula for ratings with creature features, but they aren't working either.

Incidentally, if they do buy a movie, they typically get a 90-day window to air it, then they let you have a 1-year home video window, and then it reverts to a SciFi Channel window again for some length of time.

They (SciFi Channel) feel they get Tivo'ed more than network shows are. (Tivo'ed shows don't count toward ad revenue). So now they want to make Saturday night movies more of an event, then they want to do acquisition of bigger theatrical packages -- probably from big studios, not independents.

Now, as far as our being a producer: it's much easier if he's bought films from the producer before. Basically, they will buy your movie for $750,000 against a $2Mil budget. That blows our economics of shooting for $350K and keeping the rest for a rainy day.

So what does this mean? We won't be producing for the SciFi Channel any time soon. But we will be making action-oriented Science Fiction "off world" features. That's our business plan. And we're stickin' to it! ;-)

Thursday, November 23, 2006

I had to send in a bio today because I'm composing the score for Macbeth at Manhattan Theatre Source. And because it was a company - wide email, we were all asked for headshots. Well, designers and technical staff don't usually include their headshots but I thought it would be amusing to take a picture of myself and send it along with my bio. Here it goes:

"Drew is a founding member of ManhattanTheatreSource, a distinction in that, like a little red imp on Andrew Frank's shoulder, he persuaded Mr. Frank into putting a theater in a former dance clothing store on MacDougal Street in Manhattan's historic Greenwich Village.

He's been doing sound/music/film things for a while now. This is actually the second time he's scored a Macbeth, the first time for a comedic film version. He designed sound for Andrew Frank and Doug Silver's Sidd off-Broadway, and composed the score for Woyzeck here at Theatresource. Drew recently directed a feature film: Bloodmask (a.k.a. Millennium Crisis) which stars Ato Essandoh and was produced and co-written by Laura Schlachtmeyer."

I used to write much more satirical bios, mentioning snotty things like being fired from some of the most famous theater companies in New York -- the New York Shakespeare Festival and the Wooster Group (dating Joseph Papp's girlfriend and being chased down the street by Willem DaFoe, respectively) but out of just trying to not embarass Andrew Frank and Doug Silver, I've calmed down lately.

Wednesday, November 15, 2006

Last night we found out that we have offers from Japan and Thailand. We don't know much about these offers, we'll report more when we know more. And when we know more, we'll have a better idea of what next year brings when we begin working on a slate of movies...

Ted Raimi came up with the idea for this shot. It looks like we're a new wave group from the early 80's -- Devo meets Kraftwerk or something...

Sunday, November 05, 2006

We don't know about, and likely won't have for serveral months, overseas deals for Millennium Crisis aka Bloodmask. But this we do know: In the future there will be more nudity, more action, more alien cityscapes, more robots.

(OK, so I'm the one responsible for the "more robots" part but the "nudity, action, cityscapes" part comes from what distributors need to sell scifi.)

We can do this. And the fact is that "more nudity, more action" is the real core of what buyers want. Other than that, I get the feeling we can do whatever we want. It's going to be the Count of Monte Christo and Treasure Island and... from here on out.

Saturday, November 04, 2006

Laura is cruising the American Film Market today. It's the last day of the regular part of the market, before the nuttiness begins. She's meeting with our rep, Halcyon International Pictures. She's hanging out in front of our poster.

What This Is

I started this blog to keep notes on a show I was sound designing. It was an off-Broadway musical which has long since closed. This blog serves as my Internet notebook, so it can be pretty random. By that I mean it's really really random. It is also not "safe for work" (unless, of course, you work in France.)

Also, I've now split up my blogs so that this is my "personal" one, and there's another for my film company and for my band.